


as love and its decisive pain

by mercuryhatter



Series: your friends are a fate that befell me [roleswap AU] [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 14th Century, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Overstimulation, Roleswap, Sensory Deprivation, divine mercy is not merciful, trans themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 03:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18003140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: Crowley's centennial performance review after the 14th century does not go well.





	as love and its decisive pain

**Author's Note:**

> this is from a roleswap AU that I'm thinking about all the time in my head. I'm really obsessed with the idea of angel Crowley being a little more in touch with his emotions because it's not *all* bad for angels to feel things the way it might be for demons, but still doing it Wrong from a heavenly perspective-- and equally, an Aziraphale who has no reason to hide his tendencies toward sloth and excess. however, this is completely self-indulgent. 
> 
> title is from Sunlight by Hozier, which you should listen to as you read this for full effect.

Crowley  _ hated  _ centennial performance reviews. He had to go up to Heaven, which was already a bad start, there was endless celestial paperwork to do, and everyone insisted on calling him by his Heavenly name. He was particularly wary about this one. The fourteenth century had been an absolute wash by any measure, and he could admit that his efforts had been somewhat self-thwarted by despair, a distinctly unangelic feeling, in the last couple of decades. And as he reminded Aziraphale every time the demon wanted to get smug about how hard Hell was, divine mercy was  _ not  _ merciful. 

 

“Gabriel!” he said with forced cheer, approximating a friendly wave as best as he could from his ethereal form. 

 

“Hanael,” Gabriel said dryly. “Let’s begin.” 

 

The thing about Crowley was that he was a little weird, as far as angels went. It was written into his job description, really, having begun as Eden’s Gardener, being so deeply tied to the living things that grew out of the Earth where most angels refused to touch. It was why he’d been given the job of Heaven’s emissary on Earth, once such a job existed, and it was why (when he wasn’t asleep) he was fairly good at it. But being on Earth for nearly 6,000 years had done nothing for his angelic divergence but make it more pronounced, and Heaven knew this. Gabriel, being the one who had to read all of Crowley’s reports and deal with him whenever he got discorporated, especially knew this. It was a helpful quality in a boss (for the boss, if not for the employee), especially when discipline was called for. Heaven did not torture, of course. It wasn’t  _ Hell _ , after all. But angels were called to be ethereal forces of Heaven’s Will, and sometimes they (he) needed to be reminded of that. The humans even had a similar concept, Gabriel remembered reading in a report once. Something about letting go of emotion and connection, letting the self obliterate and becoming one with something higher? Surely Hanael could appreciate that. 

 

Hanael, obliterated, was  _ not _ appreciating it. 

 

Maybe at some point this punishment had been meant to reintegrate a stray angel back into the Host-- maybe it still was, and Crowley was just doing something wrong. He didn’t know, and it was hard to think around the compressing-expanding-nothingness around him and inside him. It was like being buried in the heart of the universe and being flayed by it. He couldn’t feel Heaven or the Host or Earth. He couldn’t feel  _ anything _ , not himself or anyone else or even the passage of time, if time existed here. He hated his attachment to his human shape then, hated the habits that told him he should be breathing when he couldn’t, that told him he should be able to see and here with no eyes or ears or even brain to receive their impulses. 

 

Eventually it was over and his essences were scraped up from the cosmic floor and dumped back into his body, which was subsequently dumped back on Earth with a final admonition to stop slacking off. In the back room of his shop, surrounded by the smell of dirt and mildewing water and growing things, hard dirt floor under his back and warm air heavy in his lungs, he curled up tightly, overwhelmed by the return of sensation. He lost a few hours like that, desperate to open his eyes and make sure he was safe but nearly blinded every time he did. 

 

He needed to see Aziraphale. He  _ wanted _ to see Aziraphale. Driven by this thought, he picked himself up, put on as much clothing as his skin could stand, and rushed across town. Despite the crowded city streets, no one touched him on his way, repelled either by the waves of suggestion he was putting off or the look on his face. 

 

Aziraphale answered the moment he knocked on the door. His face contorted through several emotions Crowley had trouble identifying through the speed at which they flicked across his face-- relief, anger, concern-- and then he tugged Crowley through the door and into an embrace. 

 

Crowley shattered then, alive with the arms around him, smothered in Aziraphale’s touch and smell and the feeling of his hair falling across Crowley’s cheek. He shook frantically, but Aziraphale pressed him back together, steady. 

 

“You have been gone  _ six months _ , Crowley,” he said severely, a tone that was betrayed by the fervent sweep of his hands over Crowley’s back. “Care to explain yourself?” 

 

Crowley outright gasped with relief at hearing his real name in someone else’s mouth and clutched tightly at the back Aziraphale’s shirt, keeping him from stepping away. 

 

“Oh,” he said, trying for lightness and missing by a small country. “Bad performance review. Nothing to worry about, really. Had it coming.  _ Knew _ it was coming.” His voice emerged raw from his throat, but it felt incredible to use it again, and he felt himself tipping towards a good, thorough babble. “You know, the whole plague business, all the political reshuffling, all that Renaissance thinking, they weren’t a fan. Should’ve done more, I know, but nothing to be done about it now.” 

 

“I was going to offer you some tea, but I think we had better go straight to bed,” Aziraphale said in that serious tone that he only used when he was past even pretending to care which feelings for certain celestial entities might be frowned upon for a demon. Even for someone as cavalier with the rules as Aziraphale, it wasn’t as common an occurrence as one might think. Crowley made a small noise of assent into Aziraphale’s neck where his face was firmly tucked, and in a moment of spatial disarray they were in Aziraphale’s bedroom, clothes dispensed with, firmly under Aziraphale’s several down comforters. 

 

“Cry, darling, I know it will make you feel better,” Aziraphale suggested, and Crowley did, big, heaving sobs that made him feel like he was  _ really _ getting air to his lungs for the first time since he’d returned to Earth. Aziraphale had produced a handkerchief from nowhere and was touching it carefully to his face, avoiding singing his fingertips with Crowley’s tears. As he wound down, Crowley took it from him and dried his own face before banishing the handkerchief back to his own shop, where Aziraphale wouldn’t accidentally burn himself on it later, and leaned forward for a kiss that Aziraphale quickly turned devouring. 

 

It was  _ beautifully _ scalding and Crowley became a fount of incoherent sound beneath it as his body remembered what this was like. He was all nails and teeth in response, as hard and frantic and alive as Heaven thought he shouldn’t be, and Aziraphale was nothing but gentleness in return. Gentle, but not distant; Crowley couldn’t have taken being touched lightly or with hesitance just now. Aziraphale’s hands were firm and heavy and strong, bruising in places, pressing Crowley down into the bed, so he felt the cool slide of sheets and pillows across his skin from one side and the warm slide of Aziraphale from the other. 

 

“Oh, oh, oh, oh,” he said, unable to remember another syllable but equally unable to stay silent. Aziraphale received the sounds into his mouth, his whole body draped over Crowley’s, one hand pushing over and over through his hair while the other reached low between them to capture the efforts they both made in one fist. Crowley yelled when he came and then whimpered and gasped while Aziraphale continued to move until he was satisfied too. After, he simply lay on top of Crowley, a reassuring weight. 

 

“I love you,” Crowley said hoarsely, his hands running over and over Aziraphale’s back. Aziraphale shifted and caught them in his own, interlacing their fingers together and pressing them down to either side. Crowley shivered, but relaxed under the restraint. 

 

“Don’t mention it, my darling,” Aziraphale said, pressing kisses to each of Crowley’s eyebrows before settling back down. 

 

“Park tomorrow? I’ll fetch the food,” Crowley offered. 

  
“Of course. I’ll make _sure_ ,” and here Crowley could almost feel the power behind his glare up as he twisted to direct it at the sky, “that the sun is out for us.” 


End file.
